The West Memphis Three are Finally Free

Incredibly good news. The West Memphis Three, who have fought since the 1990s for their exoneration, have been freed from prison.

Three men convicted of killing three 8-year-old boys in a notorious 1993 murder case were freed from jail on Friday, after a complicated legal maneuver that allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.
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A district court judge declared that the three men — Damien W. Echols, 36, Jason Baldwin, 34, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., 36, known as the West Memphis Three — who have been in prison since their arrest in 1993, had served the time for their crime. The judge also levied a 10-year suspended sentence on each of the men.


With his release Friday, Mr. Echols became the highest-profile death row inmate to be released in recent memory.


The agreement, known as an Alford plea, does not result in a full exoneration; some of the convictions stand, though the men did not admit guilt. The deal came five months before a scheduled hearing was to be held to determine whether the men should be granted a new trial in light of DNA evidence that surfaced in the past few years. None of their DNA has been found in tests of evidence at the scene. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the new hearing in November, giving new life to efforts to exonerate the three men.

SB9 Discussed in Today’s Chronicle

This morning’s Chron features a front-page discussion of Senator Leland Yee’s SB9, which would allow juveniles sentenced to life without parole to have their sentences reviewed by a judge.

This is a very tame, limited version of the proposal.

The California measure, which Yee has tried to make law several times before, is not as ambitious: It would let inmates, after 15 years behind bars, petition the court to change their sentence to 25 years to life, with the possibility of parole. That means that even if the court agreed to modify a sentence, there is no guarantee the inmate would get out: The offender would have to wait until 25 years have been served, then could appeal to the state’s parole board for release. To request a reduced sentence, the offender would have to “describe his or her remorse” and prove he or she has worked toward rehabilitation.

Interestingly, as is often the case with parole-related proposals, the possibility that someone who maintains his or her innocence might want to make use of the review mechanism is not even considered.

Moving from Tough and Cheap to Lenient and Cheap: Why Conservative States are Ahead of the Curve

Emily Luhrs from the CJCJ posted a really great think piece today. Taking on the ACLU point on the bipartisanism of criminal justice reform, they point out that conservative states have had a much easier time closing down prisons and decrowding institutions than, say, California.

Texas prisons, for example, went from a projected increase of 17,000 new prison beds in 2007 to below capacity in 2011, paving the way for an unprecedented state prison closure this year. The reforms have not only reduced system-swelling, but have led to the desired goal of increased safety. In the years following the reform efforts, crime rates have continued to drop more than the year before. In fact, research proves longer sentences have no effect on deterring future crime.


. . .


While California often leads the country with progressive reform efforts, it is not leading the way on the issue of incarceration. The same issues that are bloating California’s prison population were identified in previously prison-reliant states like Texas, providing hope that California can seek effective rehabilitative options as the state begins to reduce its prison population. CJCJ has long advocated for smart alternatives to incarceration and if Texas can close prisons, maybe California can too.

Here’s my take on the phenomenon Luhrs highlights: This is all about humanitarianism. Clearly, the dominant, if not only, factor at operation here is the wish to cut costs, and it’s the only factor that has succeeded in reversing the punitive pendulum. Conservative states like Texas and Arizona have a distinct edge over California in doing so, because traditionally, both of these penal systems have operated on the cheap. In fact, as Mona Lynch explains in her terrific book Sunbelt Justice, during the big Rehabilitation Years in California (before the 1970s brought disillusionment with that ideal), Texas and Arizona boasted farm/plantation models that were self-sufficient and did things on the tough and cheap. So, operating on the cheap is not a new consideration in these states. They’ve always done corrections with less. They are simply doing less with less. Here in CA, on the other hand, savings and corrections are not concepts that have traditionally gone hand in hand. We’ve done everything–incarceration, parole, probation, death row–on a mammoth scale and are used to decades of immense expenditure on corrections. That mindset may be even more difficult to change than the punitive mindset. The approach that corrections, by definition, have to be expensive, has always been part of the Californian paradigm, and has always been alien to the Texan and Arizonian paradigms.

So, as Californians, we need to learn how to be two things that we haven’t traditionally excelled at: Being lenient and being thrifty. Ironically, despite Three Strikes and Marsy’s Law and determinate sentencing and all that, we have a better track record with the former than with the latter. But reality is forcing us to acknowledge that and seeking more financial wisdom with corrections, and this will guide us on the right path with regard to punitivism.

BART Riots and Police Brutality: More on the Othering of Crime

As I write this post, BART is finally opening its downtown stations, after shutting them down in an effort to curb protests against police violence. What has been referred to in the media as “civil unrest” is yielding broad coverage, not least because of BART’s decision to cut down cellular phone service within its premises. Now that’s what some would call grounds for “civil unrest”.

But back to the topic of protest. So, the stations have been shut down, and it is rush hour. The Chronicle reports:

BART police closed the Civic Center station after at least one protester blocked a door of a Dublin-Pleasanton train for two minutes as others chanted “No justice, no peace.” The train continued east, and a dispersal order was soon issued.


“Once we got to a situation where the BART platform was unsafe, we cleared the station,” said BART Deputy Police Chief Daniel Hartwig, referring to the first closure. “We cannot jeopardize the safety of the patrons or the employees here.”


Some transit riders were infuriated. Jennifer Cohn, an attorney who works downtown, arrived at the Civic Center station at about 6 p.m. with her two sons, ages 3 and 4, after picking them up from day care. She was trying to get home to the Glen Park neighborhood.


With the station closed, she tried to catch a cab, but they seemed to be avoiding the area.


“This is an outrage. We just want to get home,” Cohn said. “I don’t really see why they should be shutting down the stations. If they have an issue with BART, they should go to BART headquarters.”

No, Ms. Cohn; what’s outrageous is that the police shoot innocent people. This “issue” is a prime example of people standing up to police abuse. And there are good reasons for all rush hour commuters to join them, rather than complain. We posted here before about the scathing review of BART police practices in the aftermath of Oscar Grant’s tragic death.

Now, why would Ms. Cohn and other riders be indifferent to this important issue? Could they possibly think that the abuses of force, unfettered discretion, and lack of professionalism at BART are good things? In all likelihood, they have not been paying much attention to the news. Or maybe, like Costelloe, Chiricos and Gertz’s survey subjects, they think that, at the receiving end of police abuse, are only people who deserve such abuse. Thuggish people. Scary people. Gang-y people. People who don’t look or behave like them.

Because, as we all know, if you don’t finish the vegetables off your plate, a cop will come get you. But if you do, no harm will befall you.

I heartily wish to all those perturbed rush-hour BART passengers, that they will never be shot in the back when handcuffed by an officer who was, assuming the best of scenarios, untrained in distinguishing between his gun and his taser (gentle reader, you can assume other scenarios if you prefer.) And that, if by any chance or bad luck, they are ever mistaken by an overzealous cop with poor vision for one of those “other” “bad” people, that others will be willing to stand up for them and raise their voice in protest. Even if it means that a few good, law-abiding citizens get home for dinner fifteen minutes late.

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Many thanks to Kathryn Nettles and Tom Oster for the conversation that inspired this post.

Tony Platt on Pelican Bay

Historian Tony Platt has a wonderful blog post out about the Pelican Bay hunger strike, titled The Shame of California. You should really read the whole thing, but here is a short excerpt:

On July 1st, a small group of prisoners in Pelican Bay’s SHU, calling themselves the Short Corridor Collective, initiated a hunger strike, calling for the abolition of long-term solitary confinement, improvement in programs for SHU prisoners, and an end to various abusive administrative procedures. Unlike a similar action by prisoners in 2002, this strike drew the support of thousands of prisoners throughout the state. Moreover, Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity was so successful in getting out information about the strike that European human rights organizations urged the Governor to respond to prisoners’ demands and the New York Times carried an Op Ed condemning the “bestial treatment” of prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison (Colin Dayan, “Barbarous Confinement,” 17 July 2011).
During the strike, according to the Short Corridor Collective, at least seventeen strikers, including three leaders, were transferred to another prison for medical treatment. The Collective ended the action on July 22nd after gaining the right to wear cold weather caps, to have calendars in their cells, and to have access to educational programs in the SHU. Though these concessions by prison authorities are modest, we should not underestimate the larger significance of the strike. It draws worldwide attention to the widespread use of torturous practices by the United States against its own citizens; it forces the government of California to sit down, face-to-face, and negotiate with people who have been demonized as semi-human beasts; and it raises the possibility of once again incorporating prisoners into a larger struggle for social justice.

Inmates’ Facebook Accounts

The security issue de jour seems to be inmates’ usage of Facebook. CDCRtoday reports:

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) today announced it has begun reporting Facebook accounts set up and monitored by prison inmates to the Facebook Security Department.


Facebook accounts set up and/or monitored on behalf of an inmate will be removed, as it is a violation of Facebook’s user policies.


“Access to social media allows inmates to circumvent our monitoring process and continue to engage in criminal activity,” CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate said. “This new cooperation between law enforcement and Facebook will help protect the community and potentially avoid future victims.”


. . .


Inmates are allowed to have Facebook profiles created prior to incarceration. If any evidence shows the account has been used while in the facility, Facebook Security will disable the account.


Over the past few years CDCR has seen a massive influx in the number of cell phones being used by prisoners. In 2006, correctional officers confiscated 261 devices, while in the first six months of this year, more than 7,284 were confiscated.

This brings up a few interesting issues. First, it’s a good reminder that the categories “inmate” and “non-inmate” are not insular. In a reality in which 1 in 100 citizens does a stint in prison during his or her lifetime, it is very probable that said person, like the rest of us, will have a Facebook account and online friends. The account can, of course, be used for both social and nefarious reasons. Naturally, the CDCR story highlights the nefarious examples; but one can imagine that, for the most part, Facebook is used by lonely folks to find some human connection, either with the friends they have or with friends they hope to make. These links may only work for those of you with Facebook accounts, but here’s an Ohio service to find pen pals for inmates. This one seems to have a matchmaking/hooking up angle. Inmates seem to be looking for the same things non-inmates are looking for on Facebook: Friends, drama, romance, sex, contact with family… this is not very surprising, is it?

There are also enforcement difficulties. The authenticity of establishing whether the account “had been used while in the facility” may be challenging. A family member may log on in the name of an inmate to provide information and maintain the inmate’s connection with friends and relatives. Several campaigns on behalf of inmates, such as the campaign to save Troy Davis from a wrongful execution, feature said inmates’ pictures.

In addition, there is a slippery slope risk. The CDCR story highlights the concern of a mother whose daughter is being stalked by a sex offender within walls. Are parolees’ Facebook pages monitored?

Our notions of what incarceration and isolation mean are challenged in a variety of ways; I hope they’ll make us question the need for mass incarceration and isolation in the first place.